First date, she told me all of her credit cards were maxed out (5 of them), she had massive amounts of student loan debt, and no savings. And she was lol-ing about it, seemingly not concerned in the least.

That level of financial irresponsibility is difficult to overcome and the fact she didn't take it seriously was enough for me to nope that possibility.

Was she working towards paying them off? Did she have a good career that they were needed for? I’m sympathetic to those situations as an exiting student myself (not the maxed out credit cards but I do have a couple that I use for support when my loans run out)

She wasn't, no. If she had been, I'd have probably viewed it in a different light. It was the fact that she was loling the whole situation and had no plan to get a handle on things and wasn't making nearly enough money to even begin paying it off that turn me off immediately.

How the fuck do you max out 5 (FIVE) credit cards and not once stop and think, maybe, just maybe, you're spending real money that you have to pay back and its not a fucking magic piece of plastic. I dont think any amount of financial literacy classes could save people from their own idiocy.

She was job hopping, if I remember correctly. Showed up late one too many times as a server, got fired, moved on to the next restaurant. In the meantime, she wasn't making enough to cover her rent or her student loan payments (and didn't bother trying to set up an income based repayment plan) so she just kept spending because, "What else am I supposed to do? I need to eat and I need a roof over my head and..." I think she also thought she'd just get another credit card if she needed, didn't realize that at a certain point, she'd be so deep they'd be unlikely to give her another and bankruptcy would be the only option.

I had a friend try to set me up with a guy and told me he had just been divorced and filed for bankruptcy. Now, maybe it was the ex-wife’s doing that caused the bankruptcy but we are in our EARLY TWENTIES. Nope. Nope. Nope.

It's such an early age to start off with so much baggage. It's already hard enough to secure your financial future and your kids' financial future, but add a bankruptcy on top and it's like playing baseball with one arm tied behind your back.